So everybody knows I’ve moved. I’m unpacking. I’m fascinated at how this is playing out. First of all, does everybody know about the 80/20 rule? I’ve heard it a lot in business but I find it applies in all kinds of things. Basically it says you take 20 percent of your time/effort to do 80 percent of the work and the remaining 20 percent of the work takes 80 percent of the time. Unpacking follows the 80/20 rule, the problem is that last 20 percent of the unpacking is the sewing stuff. Sigh. Usually at this point I just moan about ALL THE FABRIC.
I did keep a number of projects packed as projects, but I haven’t run across a lot of those yet. The rest of the fabric is a frightening jumble of boxes and plastic totes, and I know I will have to touch every single piece to make any sense out of it at all. That strikes me as a very daunting task that will absolutely take 4 times longer than it took to unpack the rest of the house. Sigh again.
Two things happened this week that make me think I might have some decent unpacking karma at least. Two completely unrelated projects needed fabric. I wanted to do both of them from my stash but I had no idea how I was going to find the appropriate amount of fabrics that would go together without unpacking all the fabric.
The first project was a notebook cover for a game I’m in. I wanted to use Japanese fabric that I know I have, but I knew there would also have to be some coordinating pieces. In the same box, I found some of the Japanese fabric, and 3 other pieces of fabric that were purchased at a different time and had nothing to do with the Japanese fabric but coordinated beautifully and was enough to do the notebook cover. Interesting.
The second project is a mystery quilt. I had the fabric requirements but I wasn’t sure how I was going to find fabrics that I would like that would lend themselves to the mystery. In unpacking a box, I found a project kit I purchased about 5 years ago, that I never started, that had just the right amount of fabric in it for half the mystery. A second box with background fabrics that I had already unpacked and Bob’s your Uncle, I have all the fabric for the mystery quilt out of my stash.
I’m going to take all of this as a sign that my unpacking karma is going to be pretty good as I weed through the remaining boxes for the sewing room. There’s a lot of work ahead of me, but I keep telling myself that there will always be lots of work, I need to make sure I include time to work on some projects – all work and no play makes Martha a grumpy quilter.
